John Meier, in appropriate keeping with Historical Jesus questers, warns us up front of the challenges that really shades this field of research. The picture of Jesus that he draws so far for us in this book, in keeping with the methodological rigor, is someone who is quite "marginal" - someone in the social periphery. This Jesus was, even during his ministry, someone who stayed in that periphery until his fateful clash with authorities. This book is still only the first of Meier's as-of-yet incomplete corpus, but it clearly outlines Meier's sensitivity to ancient texts and his dialogue with other historical Jesus scholarship, particularly butting heads with "sensationalist" writers. I am, however, most taken in by what I had referred to as Meier's methodological rigor, particularly the criteria that he uses to sift fact from "fiction" in the Jesus narratives. Particularly because of the sensitive faith issues, Meier is careful to not use the word "fiction" but simply relegates such material as unprovable or matters of faith. But, I think, he is fair in this matter: Just as he rejects the Gnostic texts, including the Gospel of Thomas, he rejects the Genealogies of Jesus as bereft of information for the Historical Jesus, though for different reasons.
To give an example of one of his criteria, he cites the Criterion of Embarassment. This is basically any of the "hard" truths that would have been embarassing to the early church but had become too connected to the historical figure of Jesus to be discarded. These could be phrases, actions, etc. For example, the phrase, "I have a dream" is forever associated with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; It is the same with Jesus as an inferior when he is openly baptised by John the Baptist, for the "baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins." Particularly fascinating, for me, is the claim that such actions/words traceable to Jesus remained within the tradition because of a strong "conservative" force within the religious body (however it might have looked like). I imagine a coalition of the "oldies" (A Mary or two, Peter, James, maybe Paul will pop up now and again. Thomas would of course be somewhere in India) mentoring the newbies.
I do not want to write too much about it, since it really is something that you should read on your own, but one minor detail: I really wish that it was written in paperback. It's quite large and difficult to carry around. Also, the book itself is quite short: it is the endnotes that take up a good half of the book. Still, if you're interested in this kind of stuff, this is a must-read. It's rigor and attribute to detail is really great.
BTW, Meier's is a Catholic Priest. :)
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